SIBELIUS SUPER AUDIO CD LUONNOTAR TAPIOLA SPRING SONG RAKASTAVA SUITE FROM ‘PELLÉAS OCH MÉLISANDE’ LISE DAVIDSEN SOPRANO BERGEN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA EDWARD GARDNER Jean Sibelius, 1904 Sibelius, Jean Coloured drawing by Albert Gustaf Aristides Edelfelt (1854 – 1905) / Lebrecht Music & Arts Photo Library / Bridgeman Images Jean Sibelius (1865 – 1957) 1 Luonnotar, Op. 70 (1913)* 8:50 (Kalevala) in F sharp minor • in fis-Moll • en fa dièse mineur Tone Poem for Soprano and Orchestra An Aino Ackté Tempo moderato – Tranquillo assai – A tempo – Tranquillo assai – Poco a poco allargando 2 Tapiola, Op. 112 (1926) 18:02 in B minor • in h-Moll • en si mineur Tone Poem for Large Orchestra An Walter Damrosch Largamente – Allegro moderato – Allegro – Allegro moderato – Allegro – Allegro moderato 3 Pelléas och Mélisande, Op. 46 (1904 – 05)* 25:43 (Pelleas and Melisande) Suite from the Incidental Music to the Play Pelléas et Mélisande (1892) by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 – 1949) Translated into Swedish by Bertel Gripenberg (1878 – 1947) 3 1 Vid slottsporten (At the Castle Gate, Prelude to Act I, Scene 1). Grave e largamente 2:20 4 2 Mélisande (Prelude to Act I, Scene 2). Andantino con moto 4:09 5 2a På stranden vid hafvet (At the Seashore, Melodrama from Act I, Scene 4). Adagio – 2:01 6 3 Vid en källa i parken (By a Spring in the Park, Prelude to Act II, Scene 1). Comodo – Un poco lento 2:13 7 4 De trenne blinda systrar (The Three Blind Sisters, Mélisande’s Song from Act III, Scene 2). Tranquillo 2:34 8 5 Pastorale (Melodrama from Act III, Scene 4). Andantino pastorale 1:54 9 6 Mélisande vid spinnrocken (Mélisande at the Spinning Wheel, Prelude to Act III, Scene 1). Con moto 1:49 10 7 Mellanaktsmusik (Entr’acte, Prelude to Act IV, Scene 1). Allegro 2:51 11 8 Mélisandes död (The Death of Mélisande, Prelude to Act V, Scene 2). Andante – Largamente 5:49 4 Rakastava, Op. 14 (1893; reworked 1911 – 12) 11:55 (The Lover) for String Orchestra with Triangle and Timpani 12 I Rakastava (Den älskande / The Lover). Andante con moto 4:06 13 II Rakastetun tie (Den älskades väg / The Path of His Beloved). Allegretto 2:17 14 III Hyvää iltaa... Jää hyvästi (God afton... Farväl! / Good Evening!... Farewell!). Andantino – Doppio più lento – Vivace – Allargando poco a poco – Lento assai 5:32 15 Vårsång, Op. 16 (1894, revised 1895, 1902) 7:45 (Spring Song) Tone Poem Tempo moderato e sostenuto – Largamente – A tempo (ma poco a poco meno moderato) – Un poco più lento – A tempo TT 72:51 Lise Davidsen soprano* Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra Melina Mandozzi leader Edward Gardner 5 Sibelius: Luonnotar, Tapiola, and other works Rakastava, Op. 14 diminished chords. The text underlying the Jean Sibelius (1865 – 1957) composed the second movement tells how love transforms instrumental Suite Rakastava (The Lover) in the Lover’s view of the world and of the 1893, working in parallel on a short cycle of path that his beloved has tread. A softly four songs for unaccompanied male choir, shivering intermezzo in B flat major forms a which he published, under the same title, marked contrast to the beginning: the world as Op. 14, in 1894. He took the texts from the appears as though enfolded in a silvery halo. Kanteletar, a collection of folk poetry which In the third movement, after exchanges first appeared in print in 1840, and which is of embraces and kisses, the Lover has to regarded as the sister epos of the Kalevala. A depart with a heavy heart from his beloved. version for mixed choir and two soloists was This movement recalls the atmosphere and published in 1898. However, the composer passionate dreams of the first movement, was not satisfied and thoroughly reworked and carries clear indications of a dialogue: the version for string orchestra, publishing the solo violin mourns the departure and it in its definitive form, also as Op. 14, only in the solo cello responds with long semitonal 1912. In his diary, he wrote: sighs. There is something of dark soil in this work. Soil and Finland. Vårsång, Op. 16 The two versions, choral and instrumental, The original title of the early Vårsång (Spring originate in the same musical material, Song) was ‘Improvisation for Orchestra’. although the four movements of the choral Under that title the work was finished only version are compressed into the three a few days before its first performance, at movements of the version for strings. The a national song festival in Vaasa in 1894, Kanteletar text of the first song / movement where it was overshadowed by the success tells of the solitude of the Lover, longing of an orchestral piece by Armas Järnefelt, for his darling. The D minor melancholy is Sibelius’s brother-in-law. A new version which occasionally complemented by passionate followed the next year, now under the revised 6 title, failed to boost its popularity: Vårsång beginning of his career in the British musical has neither the strong character of the tone world. poems inspired by the archaic Kalevala, nor Originally, Maeterlinck’s text had been an individual Sibelian atmosphere. In 1907, intended for the theatrical stage, but Gustav Mahler was present when the piece Debussy started setting it as a libretto for was performed in a concert in Helsinki, and an opera soon after the play was published, there he received his first impressions of in 1892. The operatic première occurred ten the music of Sibelius. His reaction in a letter years later, in 1902. This anti-naturalistic text of November 1907 to Alma Mahler was not also inspired three other major composers: benign: Fauré, Sibelius, and Schoenberg. Which The quite usual kitsch, served up qualities made Maeterlinck’s text so attractive with these peculiar Nordic manners to composers? In a comment which appeared of harmonisation as national sauce. in The Guardian in April 2008, Tim Ashley wrote: ‘Disgusting stuff!’ Even though he [Maeterlinck] always presents his audiences with a reasonably Suite from ‘Pelléas och Mélisande’, Op. 46 clear narrative, he also paradoxically never In March 1905, Sibelius was supposed to fully spells out the exact nature of the pay his first visit to England, invited to relationships between his characters: conduct his own works in Liverpool. Quite Pelléas et Mélisande is essentially a tragedy unexpectedly, though, he hastened directly of adultery that keeps us curiously in the to Helsinki from Berlin, where he had been dark about the details of its central sexual working simultaneously on (rewriting) the entanglement. Violin Concerto, the Third Symphony, and the The symbolist drama around this love triangle incidental music to Pelléas och Mélisande. takes place in mediaeval times in a landscape The first performance of this play by Maurice between the conscious and the subconscious, Maeterlinck in a Swedish translation by the places and characters identified by curious composer’s friend the poet Bertel Gripenberg details and names, all of which endows would take place already on 17 March in the plot with deep symbolic meanings Helsinki, Sibelius conducting. His début in (the contrast between cave and daylight, Liverpool was postponed until December the Mélisande’s losing her ring in the fountain, same year, when it would form the decisive the kingdom of Allemonde, etc.). 7 The incidental music originally consisted ‘Mélisande vid spinnrocken’ (Mélisande at of ten numbers for small ensemble, seven the Spinning Wheel), the portrait shows the of which were instrumental interludes, two young woman as more mature and conscious were melodramas, and one was a song. of her fate than in the presentation of the Later Sibelius reorganised the music in eight second movement. A persistent tremolo instrumental movements to form the Suite, in the viola is interrupted by ominous Op. 46 which we know today. The majestic woodwinds. The ‘Mellanaktsmusik’ (Entr’acte) first movement, ‘Vid slottsporten’ (At the is played before the opening of the fourth Castle Gate), is well known to BBC listeners act, in which the climax of the drama is as the signature music for the long-running reached: the killing by Golaud of his brother. popular science / astronomy programme ‘Mélisandes död’ (The Death of Mélisande), The Sky at Night. The music of the second sometimes heard in concerts as an encore, movement, ‘Mélisande’, characterises the shy introduces Scene 2 of the fifth and last act girl: a melancholy melody in the cor anglais. and describes the tender vulnerability of the ‘På stranden vid hafvet’ (At the Seashore) dying young mother. gives us a hint of the airy impressionistic technique that Sibelius would later apply Luonnotar, Op. 70 in The Oceanides. The tranquil surface still It is a well-known fact that Sibelius in his hides a threatening undercurrent. ‘Vid en källa early days was spellbound by Finnish i parken’ (By a Spring in the Park) is the most mythology, most obviously in the Kullervo conventional of the numbers, a delicate waltz. symphony, of 1891 – 92, brutal and bristling The only originally vocal movement, ‘De trenne with masculine power. The work is based on blinda systrar’ (The Three Blind Sisters), sung texts and episodes in the Kalevala, the Finnish in the play by Mélisande, is a modest archaic national epic poem, which was compiled ballad in F minor, with a pedal point on the by Elias Lönnrot (1802 – 1884) who first dominant. The original vocal part is in the published it in written form in 1835, issuing a instrumental version substituted by clarinets. much enlarged version in 1849, and who also, The bucolic ‘Pastorale’ draws us towards in the meantime, in 1840, had published the darker currents in the plot: at this point Golaud Kanteletar.